t it was robbed, even for the
man who had loved him, of all bitterness beyond that of personal loss.
He had not gone uncriticised more than can anyone; there were not a few
of the country people too coarse of grain to understand a man's life
could really be as his appeared, and a certain capriciousness in his own
likes and dislikes, which was one of his greatest weaknesses, had made
for him intolerant critics among his own class. Yet, all in all, he was
as near perfection, not only in character, but in understanding, as
anyone Ishmael had ever heard of--far more so than anyone he had ever
met. And of later years the Parson had grown in tolerance, which always
to him had been a Christian duty--though it was far from being a weak or
maudlin tolerance; and he had also lost much of that individualism which
had been the only thing to cloud his judgment. More than most old men he
had been free from glorification of the past, though not as free as he
himself imagined. Something of Ishmael had gone with Killigrew's going,
but that something had hardly included much of his heart; now there was
buried with the Parson, or, more truly, strove to follow him whither he
had gone, a love which was as single-natured a thing as can be felt. The
return of Nicky was the only thing which at all filled the emptiness in
Ishmael's days.

Nicky had altered, and for the better, if, thought Ishmael, it was not
the mere selfishness of the old generation which had ever made him feel
Nicky needed improvement. This deepening, this added manliness, would
after all have been superhuman in the boy who had gone away. Nicky had
lived roughly among rough men, and he had stood the test well. He still
had the delightful affectations of youth, but wore them with a better
grace. He came back not only the heir and future master of Cloom, but a
man who could have won his way in the world without so many acres behind
him. He was full of new ideas for farming, which he had imbibed in
Saskatchewan, and Ishmael, with a smile of dry amusement against
himself, found he was as suspicious of them as ever John-James had been
of his iron ploughs and Jersey cows. Farming being "the thing" in
Canada, Nicky, who had gone away rather despising it, came back eager to
try his hand.

When Ishmael had first started machinery at Cloom, beginning with a
binder and going on to a steam thresher that he hired out for the
harvest all around the district, the hedges had been black with